Please consider renaming the executable

[rbq]

Hi, you chose an abbreviated name for the executable that differs from the Gem name to anticipate a heavy users will to set up a congruent alias. I believe that's a bad idea for the following reasons:

• One or two letter names are often set up by users as an alias for stuff they use regularly. In my case the tm alias is the shortcut for "open with TextMate or open the current directory if no file name given" for years. I was quite surprised that this alias was broken when I installed a Gem that is not even called "tm". I don't see an easy way to keep my existing alias and add another one (like "ticket" or "ticketmaster") other than forking and keeping a local checkout (or remove/rename the executable after each update).
• Users may not want to use tm as their alias. I myself don't use the executable atm, but if I did on a daily basis, I'd probably end up creating even shorter aliases like ta to add and tl to list tickets. For everything else I'd probably prefer entering tick[tab].
• It's plain confusing if a Gem "a" provides an executable "b". I think people who use the executable infrequently are likely to forget that, enter ticket[tab] and wonder why there isn't a binary available. The other way around you may discover a "tm" executable sitting in your Rubygems bin directory but gem list tm only mentions "tmail". Imho consistency should take priority over (assumed) ease of access.

Would love to hear other opinions. Is it just me or is naming executables after the Gem considered best practice?

[kiafaldorius]

I think you're right. I actually needed to change one of my aliases to tm- because of the tm gem. But I'd like to hear some more opinions on this.

Thanks for the feedback!

[cored]

Sorry for the delay for this reply.

You are probably right, but right now I think it can bring some
compatibility issues to remove this binary from the project. Probably it's
wise to start thinking in a solution for this problem. If you have any
suggestion we will be glad to hear it.

Thanks in advance for all your help :-)

On Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 8:13 AM, rbq <
reply@reply.github.com>wrote:

Hi, you chose an abbreviated name for the executable that differs from the
Gem name to anticipate a heavy users will set up a congruent alias. I
believe that's a bad idea for the following reasons:

Those one or two letter names are often used by users as an alias for stuff
they use regularly. In my case the tm alias is the shortcut for "open file
with TextMate or open the current directory if no filename given" for years.
I was quite surprised that this alias was broken when I installed a Gem that
is not even called "tm". I don't see an easy way to keep my existing alias
and add another one (like "ticket" or "ticketmaster") other than forking and
keeping a local checkout (or remove/rename the executable after each
update).

Users may not want to use tm as their alias. I myself don't use the
executable atm, but if I did on a daily basis, I'd probably end up creating
even shorter aliases like ta to add and tl to list tickets. For
everything else I'd probably prefer entering tick[tab].

It's plain confusing if a Gem "a" provides an executable "b". I think
people who use the executable infrequently are likely to forget that, enter
ticket[tab] and wonder why there isn't a binary available. The other way
around you may come up this "tm" executable sitting in your Rubygems bin
directory but gem list tm only mentioning "tmail". Imho consistency should
take priority over (assumed) ease of access.

Would love to hear other opinions. Is it just me or is renaming executables
after the Gem name considered best practice?

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
https://github.com/hybridgroup/ticketmaster/issues/16

Rafael George

[deadprogram]

I think you have the right idea here: we should default to gem name, if someone wants a short alias (which I do) we can create our own without making such a bold assumption of others use.

[rbq]

I'd like to bring this up again. Imho removing the binary is not necessary, renaming it to "ticketmaster" would be perfectly fine.

[deadprogram]

+1

On Thu, Mar 15, 2012 at 3:38 PM, rbq <
reply@reply.github.com

wrote:

I'd like to bring this up again. Imho removing the binary is not
necessary, renaming it to "ticketmaster" would be perfectly fine.

---

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
https://github.com/hybridgroup/ticketmaster/issues/16#issuecomment-4530662

Ron Evans
The Hybrid Group
http://hybridgroup.com
p. 310-916-9924
m. 310-597-1013